TABITA REZAIRE & AMAKABA

Tabita Rezaire moved to French Guiana to study farming and learn how to cultivate land in accordance with traditional cycles and methods. She founded Amakaba, an agroecological cacao farm, yoga and doula centre, and astronomical observatory in the Amazon rainforest, to practice forms of embodied learning in the surrounding ecology and consciously explore the interdependency that connects all living beings with the Earth and the universe. Amakaba is at the crossroads between agriculture and art, science and bodily practices, spiritual and material philosophy. Cacao D’Amazonie (2020) follows a group of young cacao farmers in French Guiana, as they clear the soil at the foot of the cocoa trees and prune them. Interviews with the workers show them navigating between traditional forms of small-scale farming benefiting from knowledge of the land gathered across generations, and their identity as young men who, while living in rural areas, are interested in urban cultural phenomena such as trap music. The sense of community and the respectful preservation of the forest are at the heart of their actions.

Tabita Rezaire intertwines her artistic practice with the study of cosmology, healing practices and agriculture. Her work unveils a spectrum of connections across these fields, informed by practices originating from Africa and South America that are today undervalued due to the European imposition of its knowledge systems as universal. Her work encompasses technology-based and speculative practices alongside performances centered on energy flows and spiritual healing. In Singing Bee Garden the artist documents how beekeeping is conceived by farmers in Guyana as a symbiotic practice, taking its lead from the bees’ respectful relationship with their surrounding environment. The interspecies forms of cooperation and communication established protect the bees from pesticides and other invasive practices while providing beekeepers nourishment for their families and being resonant with their Rastafarian beliefs.

Artist statement

Agriculture is at the center of key, intertwined economic, social, political and spiritual issues. We’re moving in a direction that’s more, a little bit more, conscious for our planet, for how we’re living and inhabiting the planet. Because right now agriculture is one of the most damaging industries to the Earth, if you think about the big agroindustries…But agriculture is also a key part of caring for the Earth. And so my intent is to contribute, as much as I can, to finding a more conscious, more loving way of taking care of the land, with gratitude. Sometimes it’s done to make more money and so we lose sight of the real reason we’re growing food to feed our people. So I think agriculture is political.